God's Zeal Read online

  Thinking in steps, which had already combined the doctrine of being with spirit-metaphysical supremacism in antiquity, caused a beneficial increase in the difficulty of ascending to the highest through its attention to tests, ranks and bullying. It convinced people that the step they were on could not be a very high one, let alone the highest – through the mere fact that they were on it. In addition, the divine hierarchies offer considerable scope for ranks beyond human comprehension, which is why humans always have a motive to look upwards. They flourish only in the uncertainty of their admission to higher circles. Let us not forget that this mentality still informed Nietzsche's thinking when he sought to show his friends ‘all the steps of the Übermensch’.6 Rainer Maria Rilke also showed his familiarity with the traditions of the upward glance when he invoked the ‘pollen of the blossoming godhead, joints of light, hallways, stairs, thrones’.7 It was only when the ‘God-seeker gangs’ of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries burst into this universe, built entirely on discretions, that the pathos of graded distance disappeared. The efforts of a world consisting of ranks, scales and ascents have since become incomprehensible to most people. Deregulated desire wants a ‘flat hierarchy’ – or even completely level ground. It no longer accepts any reason why it should not have everything on its own level immediately. Status and stasis evaporate here too – not, however, to force individuals to view their relationships with others through sober eyes,8 but rather to leave them behind in a previously unknown state of defencelessness. In this condition they succumb first to the temptations of the extreme, then to those of a vulgarity without limits.

  One could make similar observations in the case of prestige-laden negative theology. Its origins among the Greek church fathers, specifically the Cappadocians and Dionysius Pseudo-Areopagita, support the assumption that it was intended to mitigate the obsession with ascension in a spirit-metaphysically aroused monastic community of a Hellenistic-Christian variety. Though the educated among today's religion-lovers almost treat it like God's last intellectual chance, it actually served in its heyday as the ascetic's last chance to prevent spiritual infiltration by the frenzied masses. Its method was the slow pondering of lists consisting of concrete negations of the properties assigned to the Highest, whose constant repetition was meant to give meditators an awareness of their own distance from the pinnacle. Negative theology can only be productive as an intellectual litany that makes humans aware of the immeasurable distance between the unrecognizable God and his recognizable attributes. It cannot really be studied, only recited like a logical rosary. The exercise has the dual purpose of ensuring the transcendence of the super-objective object and coaxing the meditator away from the target area of deificatory frenzy. This satisfies the interest in polyvalence, as the faithful subject situates itself in a third position between a complete exclusion from God and a complete inclusion in him. As far as the modern use of this form of thinking is concerned, I shall restrict myself to observing that – as usual – the intention of those interested in it today is the opposite of the original exercise, as the highest can never be immanent and ego-near enough for them.

  The various hermeneutical approaches stemming from an engagement with the Holy Scriptures can equally be considered schools of polyvalent thought behaviour. This is due primarily to the fact that professional scriptural exegetes are confronted with a dangerous alternative. The business of interpretation naturally calls for third options, as it is almost immediately faced with an unacceptable decision: either an excessively good or an excessively bad understanding of the divine message. Both options would have disastrous consequences. If one were to understand the scriptures as well as only their own author could, it would seem as if one wanted to clap God on the back and declare agreement with him – a claim that would hardly appeal to the guardians of holy traditions. If one's interpretation goes against the consensus, however, and in fact considers them completely opaque or nonsensical, it could be a case of demonic obstinacy. In both cases the recipient falls short of his duty, incurring the wrath of the orthodox establishment – which, as we know, was never squeamish when it came to laying down the law for heretics. Religious hermeneutics is thus located a priori in the space between two blasphemies and has to remain in limbo there. No situation could provide a better motive for committing oneself to a third option. If one cannot become one with the author's intentions as if one understood him better than he did himself at the moment of dictation, but is equally forbidden to miss his message as if he were some stranger with nothing to tell us, an escape to some middle ground is almost inevitable. The striving for a truthful understanding of the holy symbols is at home in the intermediate realm of interpretation, and its fundamental imperfection is its opportunity, its element. There is no need for any long-winded explanations of why such work, which takes place in the twilight of a meaning that is only ever partially revealed, has the strongest anti-extremist qualities – it can take its practitioners to the threshold between religious text and literature.9 Paul Celan refers to the word's abstinence from oppressive authority when he states that poetry does not impose, but rather exposes itself.10 In a conversation with Heiner Müller, who sometimes admitted that he no longer knew what he had meant in some line of his poetry, Alexander Kluge observed: ‘You switch off your ears and pronounce verses.’ This surely means that there is more sense in the world than the authors themselves can understand. The possibility of relaxing the hold of the absolute text in multiple readings has been most significant in the Jewish culture of commentary, whose richness stems from the proliferation of perspectives. Hence the profound jest: two Talmudic scholars, three opinions.

  These effects are rounded off by the humour that develops in the shadow of the monotheisms. It shows a number of similarities with humour under dictatorships, as all totalizing systems, religious and political alike, provoke a popular backlash against the supposedly sublime that is forced on them. Humour can almost be considered the school for polyvalence, as it trains its apprentices to view every possible situation, in particular the more unpleasant ones, from a third perspective. This third view comes neither purely from below – from anxiety – nor purely from above – from indifference – but rather combines the upper and lower views in such a way that it has a liberating effect on the observer. Thus the subject can share in a more confident attitude towards its own situation. While philosophers have mostly used the motif of being superior to oneself in praise of self-control, humorists emphasize the aspect of self-therapy. In the context of cognitive theory, one would describe the practice of the third view as the reframing of a data mass in order to prevent consciousness from being overwhelmed by a paralyzing point of view. It is no coincidence that typical zealots instinctively recognize humour as the enemy that spoils business for the forces of militant one-sidedness. Wiser fighters compensate for their lack of humour with the assurance that laughter will be reserved for times of peace – just as Lenin considered it advisable to postpone listening to Beethoven's music until the fulfilment of Communism, as it seduces us into embracing our neighbour, even if he is a capitalist, instead of cracking his skull for the sake of a better future.

  If one takes the effects of these disciplines as a whole, one can speak of civilization through institutionalization. For the participants of mature religious cultures, the good manners of informal polyvalence become second nature to such a degree that many passages from their own sacred texts which voice holy fury seem like embarrassing archaisms to them. In this predicament they resort to the discreetly heretical method of citing only those passages that are compatible with dominant sensibilities. A similarly selective approach to the whole text is also necessary among contemporary Catholics: it is not without reason that the controversial psalms of vengeance were recently removed from the Roman church's liturgy of the hours. The time will come when Muslims also decide to overlook the more sinister passages of the Qur'an. The civilizing process of the monotheisms will be complete once people are ashamed of ce
rtain statements made by their respective god and unfortunately documented, like the public appearances of a generally very amiable, but also irascible, grandfather who has not been allowed to mix with people without an escort for a long time.

  Notes

  1 Cf. above, p. 2.

  2 Cf. Victor and Victoria Trimondi, Krieg der Religionen. Politik, Glaube und Terror im Zeichen der Apokalypse [The War of Religions. Politics, Faith and Terror Under the Sign of the Apocalypse] (Munich: Fink [Wilhelm], 2006).

  3 Translator's note: this is a reference to a poem written by Rainer Maria Rilke in 1922. It begins ‘Solange du Selbstgeworfenes fängst, ist alles Schicklichkeit und lässlicher gewinn’, and the published translation of the full poem reads as follows – ‘As long as you catch self-thrown things / it's all dexterity and venial gain – ; / only when you've suddenly caught that ball / which she, one of the eternal players, / has tossed toward you, your center, with / a throw precisely judged, one of those arches / that exist in God's great bridge-system: / only then is catching a proficiency, – / not yours, a world's’: Rainer Maria Rilke, Uncollected Poems, trans. Edward Snow (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1996).

  4 Cf. Klaus Heinrich, Tertium datur: eine religionsphilosophische Einführung in die Logik [A Religion-Philosophical Introduction to Logic] (Basle: Stroemfeld, 1981). In addition to the non-technical arguments for polyvalence hinted at here, one should also point out the technical analysis of polyvalent logical structures in the work of Lukasiewisc and the Polish school, as well as in recent computer science. Gotthard Günther has taken a path of his own to establish a non-Aristotelian logic, though so far his work has been read more by systems theorists than philosophers.

  5 Oliver Sacks, The Island of the Colour-blind (London: Picador, 1997).

  6 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra I, Zarathustra's Prologue, part 9.

  7 Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, Elegy 2.

  8 ‘All that is based on status and stasis evaporates, all that is holy is profaned, and humans are finally compelled to view their position in life and their relationships with others through sober eyes’: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, part I.

  9 The most resolute equation of holy text and poetry can be found in the writings of the American literary critic Harold Bloom, who has no qualms about comparing the God of the Yahwist with King Lear and Jesus with Hamlet. Cf. also Odo Marquard, Abschied vom Prinzipiellen. Philosophische Studien [Farewell to the Fundamental. Philosophical Studies] (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), pp. 127–32.

  10 Paul Celan, ‘The Meridian. Speech on the Occasion of the Award of the Georg Büchner Prize’ in Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan, trans. John Felstiner (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2001), pp. 401–13.

  7

  The parables of the ring

  Nowhere is the programme of a domestication of the monotheisms in the spirit of the good society evident more suggestively than in the parable of the ring from Lessing's 1779 dramatic poem Nathan the Wise. It tells the story of a father in the distant past who bequeathed a precious ring to his son. The ring possessed the magical ability to make its wearer agreeable to God and men, thus proving his identity as the legitimate heir. Following the model of this first handing-down, the ring wandered for a long time from each successive father to his son, regularly displaying its pleasing effects. In one generation, however, the owner of the ring had three sons who were all equally obedient and thus equally beloved, so that he promised the ring to each of them. The loving patriarch's virtuous weakness could only be balanced out by a virtuous deception: the old man had two imitations produced ‘by an artist’ that were of such perfection that not even he could tell the original apart from the two new rings. He then gave one to each of his sons with the appropriate blessings and promises.

  After the father's death the inevitable happened: the sons began to quarrel, for each now staked his claim as the sole legitimate heir. The conflict was inescapable, but also irresolvable, for all three parties had equally valid reasons for their demands. A wise judge was called in to settle the matter. He found a solution by decreeing that all three should be put to the test. For this it was necessary to shift the focus from the level of religious claims and their proofs to the level of concrete effects. If ‘the right ring can no longer be found’ – and eo ipso the right faith, as Nathan emphatically adds – both the ring owners and their observers would have no choice but to submit to the pragmatic criterion. The power of the ring to ‘make its wearer agreeable to God and men’ would one day be the decisive factor. The candidates were left only with the advice to assist the inner virtues of the ring with their own efforts and ‘sincere warmth’. Assessing the results would naturally have to wait until the distant future, when a further judge would summon the warring parties once again – an unmistakable allusion to an Enlightenment version of Judgement Day, on which not only individual believers, but the monotheistic religions as a whole would have to take responsibility for their actions.

  From today's perspective, this parable, rightfully celebrated as the Enlightenment's equivalent of the Sermon on the Mount, shows its complete postmodernity: it combines primary pluralism, the positivization of simulation, the practical suspension of the question of truth, civilizatory scepticism, the shift from reasons to effects, and the priority of external approval over internal claims. Even the most hard-boiled reader cannot help admiring the wisdom of Lessing's solution: by postponing the final verdict until the end of time, it prevents the candidates for the truth from being sure of their selection. Thus Lessing's pious scepticism takes the religions seriously by giving them the hint not to take themselves too seriously.

  It should not impair the venerability of the document if I note a few difficulties that complicate its seemingly straightforward meaning. What Lessing is suggesting amounts to a reception-aesthetic transformation of religion. This heralds the rise of mass culture in religious matters. In this context, ‘Enlightenment’ is no less than a codeword for the belief that the elite and the masses will one day, after overcoming their historically grown estrangement, come together in shared perceptions and value judgements. It was precisely this convergence that the young heroes of German Idealism invoked as a civilizatory opportunity on the way to their goal of doing away with ‘the blind trembling of the people before its wise men and priests’.1 ‘And so the enlightened and the unenlightened must join hands, mythology must become philosophical and the people must become reasonable …’2 If, however, the potential for popularity becomes a criterion for truth – and the mouthpiece of the elite clings to this demand expressis verbis – one can expect a shift of the competition between the religions to the humanitarian field: it is not for nothing that the religious taste of the masses has always been gratified by the spectacle of charity, assuming it does not make an excursion to the theatre of cruelty in the middle.

  If one looks at the matter in the cold light of day, then, Lessing could have dispensed with the figure of the second arbiter who passes judgement in the distant future, for, since the Enlightenment, the trial of the religions has occurred not at the end of days, but rather as a daily plebiscite. This is expressed in the fluctuations of sympathy that have, since the early twentieth century, been ascertained through surveys. The prerequisite for this was that civil society itself, discreetly or indiscreetly, was declared a deity on earth.3 Ironically enough, none of the monotheistic religions fares particularly well before the court of popular taste, as the criterion of effect does not usually act in their favour – it no longer requires great acumen, after all, to realize that there is a significant correlation between monotheism and unrest (or discomfort) in the world – and the possible popular forms of the monotheistic religions, as we shall see in a moment, are also a precarious affair. The meditative religions of the East, on the other hand, most prominently Buddhism, enjoy great popularity and respect – which does not, admittedly, tell us whether the sympathizers have any desire to become practising memb
ers of their preferred cults.

  Thus Lessing and his source Boccaccio, from whose Decameron the story is taken (as the third tale of the first day), must face the question of whether they are on the right track in their interpretation of symbols. Could it not be that both have succumbed to an illusion in their depiction of the ring's effects? Let us recall: Lessing has his judge state that only the ring with the power to makes its wearer agreeable to God and men can be the genuine ring. Nathan himself emphasizes that if all three ring-owners were to prove agreeable only to themselves, they would all be ‘deceived deceivers’ – the liberality of the eighteenth century already permitted such things to be said. Only the one who gained the approval of his fellow humans would have plausible evidence of truly being on the right path. In fact, the duty of altruism has been inseparable from the classical religions ever since the surrender of the ego and the devotion to a great or small Other came to be considered the sign of true faith. That would mean that God alone could decide whether a believer is agreeable to him. Lessing, however, takes a risk – albeit one strongly supported by the zeitgeist – and expands the jury deciding the success of religion by including people in it. But who can guarantee that the quality of being agreeable to God is the same as that of garnering approval among humans?